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Tag: Poverty

Lawrence J. McQuillan | Friday January 12, 2018 at 10:18 AM PDT | Comments Off on How a Charity Uses Fake Money and Auction Markets to Help Feed America

Feeding America is a network of 200 food banks and 60,000 food pantries and meal programs that helps to feed 46 million Americans annually, including 12 million children and 7 million seniors. The network fights hunger and poor nutrition by working with manufacturers, distributors, retailers, food service companies, and farmers to gather food before...Read More »

Lawrence J. McQuillan | Friday May 12, 2017 at 4:18 PM PDT | Comments Off on Pope Francis’s Failure to See Entrepreneurs as Good Samaritans Undercuts the Poor

On April 25, a videotaped talk by Pope Francis was released at the international TED conference in Vancouver, Canada. The 18-minute talk, titled “Why the Only Future Worth Building Includes Everyone,” can be viewed here. Francis highlighted three themes, beginning with the observation that community is central to human existence: [L]ife flows through our...Read More »

Abigail R. Hall | Sunday November 27, 2016 at 3:09 PM PDT | Comments Off on Make No Mistake: Fidel Castro Was a Horrible Person

Cuba’s former dictator, Fidel Castro, has died at the age of 90. When I woke up on Saturday morning to see the news, I was surprised by the reaction of many friends on social media, as well as the national media. The New York Times headline read, “Cuban Revolutionary Who Defied U.S., Dies at...Read More »

Lawrence J. McQuillan | Thursday August 25, 2016 at 11:06 AM PDT | Comments Off on Why One in Five Americans Are on Government Assistance (in One Image)

More than 52 million people in the United States, 21 percent of the population, participate in major means-tested government assistance programs each month, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. More than 80 federal programs dole out roughly $1 trillion of benefits and services to low-income people annually (see the amazing image above from the...Read More »

On Sunday night, my husband and I sat down to watch comedian John Oliver’s show “Last Week Tonight.” The news satire program is a guilty pleasure for the both of us. As the host, Oliver often brings humor to many otherwise (rightfully) dreadful topics. Although I usually enjoy the show, that’s not always the...Read More »

CBS recently released a new show titled, “The Briefcase.” Normally, I wouldn’t have given such a show a second glance... But then I read reactions to the show on social media. I found myself vaguely ashamed for [watching]...I kept reminding myself that I had to watch it in order to write about it. [P]ossibly...Read More »

Abigail R. Hall | Thursday May 7, 2015 at 6:02 AM PDT | Comments Off on Save the Children. Open the Border

They call it “La Bestia” (“the beast”) or “el tren de los desconocidos” (“the train of the unknown”). Every year, an estimated 400,000 to 500,000 immigrants, as many as 1,500 per day, climb on top of trains and travel from their countries of origin—mostly Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and El Salvador—and through Mexico in an...Read More »

Oakland’s voters who approved the March 1 increase of the minimum wage to $12.25 apparently drank the Kool-aid that it would “help the poor.” Tell that to the working poor parents who will now be scrambling to find good, affordable child care: Workers who benefit from Oakland’s minimum wage hike might soon lose a...Read More »

Venezuela is the world’s most miserable country, according to a team of researchers at Johns Hopkins University who have calculated a World Misery Index. “Misery” is measured as the sum of a country’s inflation rate, unemployment rate, and interest rate, minus the annual percentage change in real GDP per capita. The higher the total...Read More »

Randall Holcombe | Sunday December 7, 2014 at 6:37 PM PDT | Comments Off on The Ferguson Protesters vs. the Liberal Left

The protests that began in Ferguson against a government and a legal system that systematically work to oppress minorities and the disadvantaged have continued, now inflamed by the decision not to indict the New York police officer who killed Eric Gardner by placing him in a chokehold (because he was suspected of selling cigarettes)....Read More »